Museum Hours

"Things can only get better Can only get better if we see it through That means me and I mean you too So teach me now that things can only get better They can only get, they only get, take it on from here You know I know that things can only get better" Was 1997 as good as it gets for us? That was the question posed at dinner a few evenings back to a group of self-identifying left leaning progressives deeply unhappy at the recent  coup  and the new 'government' comprised almost entirely of people so alien as to be barely recognisable as members of the same species.  That kind of conversation tends to  oscillate, sometimes at speed, back and forth along the spectrum from demoralised to utterly incandescent.   For many of us there is a sense of profound pessimism. Increasingly people openly discuss emigrating; seeking dual nationality or an Irish passport or moving to Scotland and hoping that it might become independent. In a word fleeing a

One of the most pernicious aspects of contemporary political discourse is the obsession with an imagined past which is defined in specific ways to support current prejudices.  Along with outright xenophobia, nationalism (and in some cases a hefty sprinkling of neo-liberalism), the current wave of authoritarian populists play heavily on nostalgia, producing a weapons grade, moonshine version which they hope is powerful enough to strip away rational engagement and overwhelm scepticism. Sadly, for far too many it does. Nostalgia for the individual can be comforting; a way of reflecting on good times with added sunshine. Yet just like the absurd idea that held good for far too long that the state should budget like a corner shop or a household, community level nostalgia is a dangerous notion that necessarily privileges one view of the past over all others.  Worse, it is deliberately uncritical engagement. Things were so much better when - there were fewer people who did